Processors use communication, health protocols and selective hiring to best the pandemic

Plastics processors faced all-new challenges in 2020 to continue production of essential products amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the Plastics News Executive Forum, panelists described how their companies kept employees safe while navigating supply issues and hiring shortages caused by a disaster "no one was ready for."

"We all had contingency plans in place, but they were more related to electrical outages or floods, hurricanes," Geoff Foster, CEO and president of Core Technology Molding Corp., said during the virtual event.

With new supply and staffing challenges to tackle, Core first focused on creating a written protocol based on CDC recommendations, including temperature checking and cleaning workstations, Foster said. It also assigned an environmental and safety coordinator to provide CDC updates and health information to employees.

It also employed a new enterprise resource planning system that helped it "look at transactions sometimes remotely," he said. Some scheduling and materials procuring were also done remotely, he added.

Some of Core Tech's European suppliers shut down for several months or had long lead times for shipping, Foster said, leaving the molder with shortages.

"We had to reshore and actually start producing the product ourselves here," he said.

Although one of its biggest customers, BMW, had shut down globally for a month, the company "tooled up" its purchase of components and started making essential personal protective equipment.

Core Tech ended up having a 10 percent increase in staffing to assemble face shields. It also hired six high school STEM students who were looking for internship opportunities while they were home from school amid shutdowns.

"They helped us assemble and hit some really high [production] numbers," Foster said.

Foster said Core Tech also had new requisites as it hired workers amid the pandemic.

"We did a lot more phone interviews before we brought them in for an interview," he said, in order to "weed out" potential candidates with any "red flags."

"If a candidate came here and they didn't have a mask, or they were reaching to shake everybody's hand, they weren't practicing social distancing, that lead us to believe that when they left the interview they weren't going to practice social distancing and possibly bring COVID back to the plant," Foster said.

"We wanted to get a good feel that the candidate was going to be ready to work in a manufacturing environment," he added.

As a syringe manufacturer, Core Tech expects that production to be its largest in 2021, Foster said. As the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out in the U.S., the company is encouraging its employees to get it.

"I think it's going to be our protocol that … if you're traveling to Europe especially, you're going to be required to get a vaccine by us," he said.

When the pandemic took hold in North America in March 2020, John Budreau, director of new business at PTI Engineered Plastics Inc., said it put together a task force to make decisions based on quickly-changing CDC guidelines.

"Communicating with the employees," Budreau said, was "critical at that time to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable."

"The staff here felt some pride to be able to really participate to keep our essential customers supplied with products," he said.

Budreau said he sees vaccinations for employees as "a matter of time."

"Sixty percent of our customers are in the med-device industry, and we'll follow suit to what those expectations might be, if [vaccination] is going to be a requirement for travel," he said.

As the pandemic continued, the injection molder began using a phone attached to a gimbal handle to give "virtual interactive tours" to customers, he said.

Last year, PTI designed, produced and donated 150,000 injection molded face shields to its community. It built "injection molds that would typically take six-to-eight weeks, maybe even longer, and do those in a matter of three weeks," Budreau said, to produce components for GM's Ventec Ventilator program, working through weekends "and eventually 24/7."

Christian Herrild, director of growth strategies at Teel Plastics Inc., said it worked closely with its county health department to establish itself as an essential supplier "to make sure that we didn't get the rug pulled out from under us."

Baraboo, Wis.-based Teel also had disaster recovery plans for a variety of situations including severe weather, supply interruptions or a lack of labor force, Herrild said, but that "this was like all of those things hitting at the same time."

The tubing extruder and injection molder ran short on hand and surface sanitizers and partnered with a local distillery to make them for plant.

As the film market became tight in April and May of last year, Herrild said, the company was limited on the amount it was allowed to purchase each month.

"We learned a lot out of this pandemic about the businesses our customers were in, where maybe we didn't know all the details … or constraints being put on our suppliers," he said.

One of Teel's customers had told them in the past tubing was used in sprays for garden applications, Herrild said.

"Then we found out they also made foggers for sanitizers and what we made for them was critical and we needed to get ramped up," he said.

Teel purchased new equipment, including eight injection molding machines and two extruders to respond to demand increases, he said.

Amid the pandemic, it was a "more labor-intensive, internally" installation process.

"Our maintenance people did more of the direct installation that we historically would have because we didn't want to have too many outside vendors," Herrild said.

Any outside contractors who did enter the facility had to be run through Teel's COVID safety protocols before they were cleared to do on-site work.

Teel also worked to retain its employees amid the pandemic by giving bonuses and sharing "messaging … to make sure people understood why we were asking them to come into work and why it was so important."

Herrild said another challenge was developing a "more-intensive training process" before new hires.

"Bringing somebody in is so much more resource-intensive and so much higher risk than it [was]," he said. "We want to be sure we're making the right hires and we're giving them all the tools they need to become successful out the gate."

Teel is not requiring but is "highly encouraging employees to get a COVID vaccination, just like every year we would highly encourage them to get a flu vaccination," Herrild said.

Troy, Mich.-based Cadillac Products Automotive Co. "went into a defensive posture" when COVID-19 arrived in the U.S. "out of respect and concern for our employees," Mike Williams, vice president of operations and purchasing, said.

The company shut down a week before Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's executive order to shut down unessential production last year.

Cadillac transitioned who it could to remote work, got laptops for at-home workers and made their own masks, he said.

"We did not produce an automotive part outside of shipping service for almost three months," Williams said.

During that time, the company discovered a need for medical gowns in its local community and engineered, designed and produced a product to donate to hospitals, he said.

"We jerry-rigged some of our automotive equipment that was shut down," Williams said. "We made basically a fancy pants press, but instead of a pants press, making sleeves for these medical gowns.

"As highly synchronized as [the automotive industry is]," he said, communication, specifically 11 hours of video conferences, ahead of restarting automotive production, was necessary.

"There was a lot of confusion in what Mexico would do as far as getting their manufacturing back up," Williams said. "Communication with customers, suppliers and also your employees, … it all has to work at the same time."